Hilarie Burton Gets Emotional Talking About Late White Collar Costar Willie Garson: ‘My Biggest Cheerleader’

Hilarie Burton is paying tribute to her late White Collar costar Willie Garson greater than two years after his demise from pancreatic most cancers.

The 41-year-old One Tree Hillalum grew to become emotional on Thursday’s episode of The View as she mirrored on her friendship with Garson, who was 57.

“He taught me a lot and was at all times my greatest cheerleader — oh, I’m gonna cry,” she shared. “So honoring him on this felt actually essential.”

“Clearly, once I began writing the e-book, I didn’t know we had been gonna lose him,” she added of her new e-bookGrimoire Woman: Creating an Inheritance of Magic and Mischief.  “However having the ability to honor him on this method felt actually essential as a result of he’s written on the pages of my grimoire. I’m completely different due to that affect.”

Burton additionally shared that she bonded with Garson over each being new mother and father whereas filming their USA Community drama. The actress shares Augustus, 13, and George, 5, with husband Jeffrey Dean Morgan whereas Garson adopted son Nathen, 22, in 2010.

“Once I met Willie, my son was 3 months outdated. I bought a job with him and he had simply adopted his son so we had been new mother and father collectively,” she shared. “I had simply come again to Manhattan. In order new mother and father, we’d exit within the metropolis collectively and identical to be one another’s consolation zone.”

Burton and Garson starred collectively on USA’s White Collar, which aired from 2009 to 2014. Garson performed Mozzie, whereas Burton, who joined the forged in 2010, performed Sara Ellis.

Burton opened as much as PEOPLE in September 2021 about how their friendship fashioned on set.

“Willie was the one that took me underneath his wing and had lunch with me and took me out to dinner,” she mentioned on the time. “He noticed the model of me that I wasn’t but, however that I used to be working towards.”

To honor her late good friend, Burton bought a brand new tattoo shortly earlier than his demise in September 2021. The script on her left forearm reads, “Settle down.”

“He would pay you the most important praise on this planet, and the second you’d begin to get bashful about it, he’d be like ‘Settle down, relax,’ ” she defined. “It was his method of forcing you to just accept the praise, as a result of he would diffuse it, which was a stunning behavior.”

Following the information of Garson’s demise, Burton shared a heartfelt tribute to her former costar on Instagram. Among the many carousel of pictures, she included a notice Garson had written to her and her husband when he gifted them a primary version copy of The Grapes of Wrath as a marriage current.

The notice learn, partly, “Considerably onerous to reward folks I care a lot about — so right here goes — first version, first printing (the e-book jacket is a replica of the unique, mint ones are like $15,000 — I imply I such as you, however relax).”

In her caption, Burton wrote that she included the notice “as a result of it illustrates a top quality of Willie’s that I beloved” — and would grow to be the inspiration for the brand new tattoo.

She continued, “Earlier than I went to see him, I wanted him to know the way I felt. And @hudsonvalleytattooco was so variety and understanding and bought me within the night time earlier than my flight. I wished Willie to know that I used to be carrying that ‘relax’ with me eternally.”

White Collar will be streamed in full on Hulu.